AutomatedGenealogy.com

Proofing 1911. The transcriber is very good and doing suggested corrections (which is great!) and we agree on 99%. The one hang up we have is "using the drop list when the meaning is the same". IE Using "Daughter in Law" for "son's wife" ; "Adopted" when "Adopted Daughter" is written and so forth. Please clarify this for both of us. I'm sure it was written on the old forum that we were to use the drop list in these situations. If it's answered here, I can refer her to your answer or I may be wrong. Thank you.

Hello,

I haven't seen any rule so far. So, I try to use the dropdown menu as much as possible. But in many cases, it's preferable to be more specific, specially in the case of a French enumeration displayed on an English page.

For example, in French, for a ''Fille adoptive' on an English page, I would write 'Adopted girl/Fille adoptive' which is more specific than 'Adopted' and stays coherent with the English text of the rest of the page.

If the page is displayed in English, I would write 'Mother-in-law' rather than 'Belle-mère'. However, if the proofreader is asking to write 'Belle-mère', I would write 'Mother-in-law'/Belle-mère' to be coherent with the english text and comply with the proofreader's request.

We have to be careful with 'Belle-fille' in French which can be either 'Stepdaughter' or 'Daughter-in-law' depending on the marital status 'S' or 'M'.

In the case of 'Beau-fils', it could be 'Stepson' or 'Son-in-law depending on the marital status 'S' or 'M'.

In other cases:

D-i-l would be Daughter-in-law or Daughter-in-law/Belle-fille
Beau-frère would be Brother-in-law or Brother-in-law/Beau-frère
Nièce would be Niece or Niece/Nièce
Neveu would be Nephew or Nephew/Neveu
Oncle would be Uncle or Uncle/Oncle
Employé would be Employee or Employee/Employé
Apprentis would be Apprentice or Apprentice/Apprentis
Dom could be Domestic or Domestic/Domestique
And so forth

Thx for any further suggestions,

Michel Dubois, Quebec City.

My query has nothing to do with French/English but only with English written as "son's wife" (for example) which should be "daughter-in-law" by the drop-list. The transcriber believes in the "as written" theory whereas we were told, in the old forum, to use the drop list when the meaning is the same. One circumstance where "as enumerated" does not apply. Waiting for an administrator's thoughts. Thanks.

The site administrator claims memory loss and cannot remember what was decided in the discussion on the old message boards. My inclination would be to allow the transcriber to make the decision as long as it accurately reflects what was enumerated.
Do Alain or Mark remember if there was a definitive decision made all those many years ago? Would appreciate hearing from them.
Marilyn

Marilyn & Cheryl,

Did Lindsay removed the Old message board within the past year because I remember accessing it at:
http://static.automatedgenealogy.com/phpBB2/index.php

The way I remember it, the drop down menu was to be used when a menu entry match the meaning of what the enumerator wrote.
the two main reason to use the drop down menu are:
A) standard spelling, regardless of how the enumerator wrote the entry; and
B) it allowed viewing the field in the user selected language (English or French) regardless of the language used by the enumerator.

This is especially applicable for the relationship field although the drop down menu does not contain all the possible values.

Cheers,

_________________
Alain

My memory agrees with Alain - "use the drop list when meaning is the same". That's how I have been proofing for years and I think it should be standardized that way or transcribers and proofers will be at odds and corrections will not be accepted. I would appreciate a ruling one way or the other so there is something to refer to. Thanks.

Thank you Alain and Cheryl. The site administrator agrees with your assessment.

Alain - There is some possibility that the old message boards could be recovered but it is not on Lindsay's short term to-do list. In other words, they are not available and will not likely be available again unless there is some very good reason to devote a lot of time in recovering them.

Marilyn

Thank you, Marilyn.

My recollection is that there was an interesting discussion on the old message board. It revolved around when to use the drop-down menu for French relationships (hence Michel's comments). The guiding principle also applies here, which should be to use the drop-down unless there was any element of doubt that the enumerated term could mean only one thing. The French term "belle-fillle" comes to mind, which could mean either daughter-in-law or step-daughter, so should be transcribed using the "Other" option.

In this case, I can't imagine what "son's wife" could mean other than daughter-in-law so the drop-down should have been used.

Having said that, now that someone has gone to the extra trouble of transcribing these pages using the precise wording, is anything gained by insisting on a change to the drop-down terms?

Thanks. Mark

Mark, I think it's a matter of consistency and of both proofers and transcribers knowing what rules are in place. Lots of volunteers would have missed this "rule" since it was planted somewhere in the old forum and was not in the transcription instructions. I get your point for sure but, if it can be fixed easily, why not?!